The closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games took place on August 12, 2012. For the occasion, the committee in charge of organizing the event entrusted artist Damien Hirst with designing a specially commissioned artwork to cover the surface of the stadium; the area that would become the base for the stage for all the celebration shows presented at the event.
The work was rendered chromatically and was based on the emblematic colors of the British flag. These colors where "subjected" to several visual effects. Formally, Hirst took the bars and diagonals from the flag and used these as ramps decorated with representations made with newspaper.
The monumental 130 meter (426.51 feet) wide red, white and blue spin painting is regarded as the largest reproduction of a work by Hirst. The artist named it Beautiful Union Jack Celebratory Patriotic Olympic Explosion in an Electric Storm Painting.
Devlin, the award-winning designer responsible for creating the stage for the event, described Hirst's work as epitomizing "the dynamic, anarchic energy of British Pop Art."